By KEILA LAINEZ, MOHAMED REDA JAHOURI

The Legacy Conference is a project under Enactus uOttawa. Starting in 2010, the annual summit provides aspiring entrepreneurs with ideas for developing business ideas and endeavours. As this journalist helps finalise the preparations for 2025’s Legacy Conference, I wanted to look back through its history, explore its successes and analyze its failures to understand how the conference creates an intrinsic link with the entrepreneurial experience.

One Student, One Dream

The Legacy Conference came about when an exchange student was looking for an event to connect with individuals who valued entrepreneurial spirit but couldn’t find anything of the sort in Ottawa. So, he decided to create one of his own where like-minded individuals can gather to discuss and learn from entrepreneurs, and each other.   

The first conference was a small but successful start with 60 attendants and selected local speakers. The event was held on the University of Ottawa campus and, through an eventual collaboration with Enactus, began a desire to encourage an entrepreneurial culture in students. 

By 2011, the number of attendees doubled and the Legacy vision began to grow, setting the framework for what would eventually become one of Canada’s largest entrepreneurial conferences.

When the Dream Outgrows the Venue

In 2015, the height of Legacy’s success was apparent. Outgrowing campus halls, there was a need to find a bigger venue, with the conference being hosted in the Shaw Centre (now the Roger’s Centre) spanning two days and hosting over 700 attendees with workshops, breakout rooms, and networking opportunities.

2019 was another hugely successful year with attendees reaching over 800 guests. Bringing in an entirely new section of the conference, Legacy developed deCode, a hackathon that matched students with companies to tackle real-world challenges. Continuing with this trend, Legacy continued to expand beyond just an annual conference to hosting workshops offering mentorship sessions in partnership with organizations such as RBC, Microsoft, Klipfolio, and Google.

Some of the speakers at the Legacy conference over the years included:

2016: 

• Shawn Kanungo: Innovation and Disruption Strategist and Bestselling Author
• David Segal: Co-Founder of DavidsTea
• Ethan Song: Co-Founder of Frank & Oak
• Craig Fitzpatrick: CEO of PageCloud

 2017: 

• Tobi Lütke: CEO of Shopify
• Cap Watkins: VP of Design at BuzzFeed
• Brian Wong: Founder of Kiip
• Bruce Linton: Founder of Canopy Growth

2018: 

• Jake Bograd-Denton: Product Manager at Instagram
• Omar Itani: Agency Manager at Google
• Satish Kanwar: VP of Product at Shopify

2019: 

• Patric Lee: Co-Founder and Former CEO of Rotten Tomatoes
• Adam Cheyer: Co-Founder of Siri
• Oobah Butler: Writer at Vice
• Amber Stratton: Founder and Co-Owner of Pure Kitchen and Pure Yoga

2020: 

• Seth Godin: Best-selling author and entrepreneur
• Brian Scudamore: Founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
• Travis Rosbach: Co-Founder of HydroFlask

2021: Virtual

• Salman Khan: Founder of Khan Academy
• Simon Sinek: Best-selling author
• Rabiah Damji: Product Marketing Manager at Instagram
• Abigail Silverman: Creative Director at Cosmopolitan
• Jason Goldlist: Co-Founder of Wealthsimple
• David Rosenberg: Strategic Director of Snapchat

2022: 

• Kayla Isabelle: CEO of Startup Canada
• Ji Lee: Independent creator and former Director at Google and Meta
• Anne De Aragon: VP and Country Manager at GoDaddy

Failure

During the entrepreneurial process, it’s not always standing ovations, million-dollar profits, and continuous wins. Failure is an important part of this process, and Legacy was not immune to it.  

The COVID-19 pandemic was especially difficult, as the conference made the pivot to a virtual conference, managing to bring many key speakers to a virtual stage. However, as the world began to return to normal, rebuilding was not easy. Failed expansion plans, partner losses and decreased interest all hit Legacy hard. 

The Comeback

A common trend for entrepreneurs is that when they are faced with difficult situations, they pick themselves up. Channelled its nature, Legacy slowly made its way up. Hosting the first in-person conference since the pandemic, Legacy featured speakers and panellists intending to focus on leveraging student connections in the student entrepreneur space. Some of these included:

• Lily Bond, founder of Spyce Girlz
• Casey Li, founder and CEO of Bitesite
• Eric McRae, founder and coach, MBO Coworking
• Dr Ahmad Galuta, founder of Go2Grad
• Xiong Zhao, co-founder and CEO of AccMov Health
• Gabe Braden, Co-founder, Steampunk Education
  

The Future: Building Tomorrow’s Legacy

This year, Legacy is expanding beyond the uOttawa campus and virtual spaces for the first time in five years, with attendance expected to double and speakers from tech, consulting, art, and policy-making industries. 

For more information, check out the Legacy website: https://www.legacycan.ca/